A Look Back @ the U.S. Intervention in Somalia

[Mr. Somalia]

How many here saw the recent Hollywood movie Black Hawk Down? Some of you . . . For those who didn't get to see it, the plot, or that which passed for one, was pretty much your standard GI Joe type flick. It takes place in 1993 famine stricken Somalia, and the soldiers are there to provide humanitarian relief and catch some bad guys. Some of the soldiers believe wholeheartedly in the mission, and some say they're just there to kill, or because they really dig being around other soldiers. In any event, the mission goes haywire, and 19 U.S. soldiers get killed, along with at least 1,000 Somalis.

 

The movie paints the U.S. intervention in Somalia as a humanitarian one, but one that unfortunately, proved unsuccessful because the Somalian people were, at best, prevented from benefiting from this benevolence due to the interference of Somalian warlords, or, at worst, were just too plain ****** and belligerent to resist looking a gift horse in the mouth. As a result the U.S. pulled out of Somalia.

 

But Hollywood has been known to distort things in the past. Is that really what happened. Well, if you were to look at the mainstream press coverage you would indeed fine a picture painted quite similar to that in Black Hawk Down. According to the press in the early 1990s the East African country of Somalia was indeed gripped by a terrible famine. The famine was the result of a bitter civil war which had destroyed the nations economy and displaced hundreds of thousands of people. In early 1993 the U.S. led a United Nations military intervention into the country. Why did we intervene? According to the press, and the White House press conferences the first and foremost reason was to end the famine, to prevent starvation, to save the emaciated, near-dead children who were literally dying by the thousands, hopelessly caught in the middle of a civil war fought by drug-crazed teenagers and power-hungry warlords.

 

Hmmm. In that case, sad outcome aside, if we are to believe the makers of Black Hawk Down, the mainstream media and Washington, we should look in the mirror and smile because we live in a country whose foreign policy is based on justice and mercy; we live in a country that fortunately is willing to play the much needed role of the benevolent, but fast-shooting cowboy, the Lone Ranger so to speak, protecting the innocent with our flashing guns and shining silver missiles. Truly, white horse not included, we will now ride the planet bringing the benefits of our advanced civilization to all.

 

Never mind that our gun-toting humanitarian interventions seem to be somewhat selective. The civil wars in Ethiopia, and the Sudan, for example, which promoted similar famines, not to mention the similar tragedies of earlier decades in Bangledesh and Nigeria were apparently not brought to our intention. Likewise, we apparently have not been able to confirm that worldwide starvation and malnutrition is afflicting more than 35 percent of the earth's inhabitants.

 

Well folks, I do indeed look in the mirror every morning when I get up, but I'm afraid I simply do not believe what Dan Rather, Hollywood or what any president we've ever had has ever said. Call me cyncial, but I'm untrusting of any of those sources, and when they all say the same thing, my instict is to reach for my gun and my wallet. If they all same humanitarianism, then I say it has to be something else.

 

We in Socialist Action and YSA decided to put on this forum tonight largely in response to the movie Black Hawk Down and the way it portrayed the events in 1993. We intend to take on the claim that the U.S. intervened in Somalia for humanitarian reasons. We also decided to put on this forum because in the wake of September 11, and Pres. Bush's subsequent so called war on terrorism, Somalia has been mentioned more than once as a haven for terrorists, suggesting that a new intervention into that country may be in the works. This, and the INS attacks on Somali immigrants and institutions in this country, including in the Twin Cities, led us to decide that it was important to talk about what really happened in this country, and what the U.S.'s real interests there are.

 

Lets begin with a brief history of Somalia.

 

Like virtually every modern African state Somalia's history is the history of imperialism itself.

 

Though long the home of many independent and indigenous nations and cultures, beginning in the 1880s the horn of East Africa, of which Somalia is part, was divided up by France, Britain and Italy. They were also joined in this carving up of what is today Somalia by Ethiopia, an independent African nation which was spared conquest by aping the European imperialists.

 

France took the port of Djibouti, which today is a seperate nation by that same name. Italy seized Mogadishu and the coastal areas around it. The British

 

had earlier taken the port of Berbera, which seperates DJibouti and Mogadishu. Ethopia took the inland region of ******.

 

The proximity to the Suez Canal was the prime motivating factor for the carve-up of Somalia by the imperialists. The lives, history, culuture and basic democratic rights of the people inhabiting this region were of no interests to the colonialists.

 

It is interesting to note though, that despite the obvious military superiority that the European imperialists had at their disposal, their colonizing efforts did not go unopposed. In 1899, a tribal leader, nicknamed the 'Mad Mullah,' for example, mobilized the tribes and clans into a fighting force that harassed the British for over 20 years." He was called "Mad," of course, because he the idea that he could unite his nation against the combined forces of the imperialist occupiers. The rebels were finally defeated in 1920 through terror bombing by the British Royal Air Force.

 

In the last 1950s and early 1960s, as a result of the rising tide of the African liberation movement, many European nations began granting formal independence to their African colonies, choosing to exploit them through more subtle means than they had felt free to employ in the past. Somalia was granted independence in 1960. It was a nation created by imperialism though, reflecting the former borders of the British and Italian colonies, not the actual geographical spread of the Somali people, many of whom were left outside of Somalia's borders, particularly in the ****** region still ruled by Ethopia.

 

Somalis living in the ****** region responded by forming the Somalia Liberation Front to fight for their freedom and incorporation into Somalia proper. They were initially aided in this effort by the USSR. In return for its assitance to the ****** liberation struggle, Somalia granted the USSR military bases along its Red Sea coast.

 

Things got complicated though in 1974. In that year a revolution unseated the long ruling Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethopia. A pro-Soviet radical nationalist regime came to power. This military-led regime falsely called itself socialist, like most states on the African continent at that time. The use of this terminology however was no accident. For many African government to achieve any semblance of credibility in the eyes of the people, it was critical to dissociate itself from any and all capitalist labels, since it was known to all that capitalism and imperialism were the the terms most clearly associated with the European colonizers.

 

The Russians decided to drop their Somali allies for a close relationship with the new regime in Ethopia, which was determined not to relinquish its control of the Somali populated ****** region. This left the ****** Somali rebels in the lurch. Militarily, despite direct assitance from the Somalian military, the tide shifted and they suffered a terrible defeat. A forced mass exodus of more than one million people into Somalia soon followed.

 

With the Soviet departure from Somalia, the U.S. entered the picture, offering arms and aid to Somalia. They aligned themself with the Somali dictator Mohammed Siad Barre in return for military bases. The U.S. was also interested in the suspected oil reserves believed to lay underneath the country's soil and off its shores. A U.S./Somalia agreement was signed in 1981 and hundreds of millions of dollars were pumped into Somalia to finance Siad Barre's dictatorship.

 

Siad Barre had come to power in 1969 after assassinating the Somalian president Shermarke. He immediately dissolved the Parliament and banned all political parties and public organizations.

 

Following the Ethopia's defeat of Somalia in the ****** in 1978, conflict broke out in Somalia proper. A number of tribes and clans opposed the dictatorial rule of the now U.S.-backed Siad Barre regime rose up. The U.S. State Department had to admit that only wholesale atrocities and massacres kept Siad Barre in power for the rest of the decade. Thousands of civilians and whole cities were wiped out. Siad Barre's weapons were now sold to him by U.S. arms manufacturers. During the 80s he received almost a billion dollars in so-called aid for such purchases.

 

Siad Barre was a bloody dictator, but as Teddy Roosevelt used to say about Somoza in Nicaragua in the 1930s, "our son of a *****". Jimmy Carter even welcomed him to the White House when he visited the United States, gleefully shaking his blood-stained hands.

 

The Somalian people on the other hand, continued to organize to rid themselves of the Siad Barre dictatorship. The Somalian National Movement in the northern part of the country declared an independent state and the United Somali Congress ousted Siad Barre himself in 1991.

 

But the central leaders of the opposition to Siad Barre could not agree on a division of power. Occasional socialist rhetoric notwithstanding, these military leaders are more closely associated with the leading capitalist interests, usually foreign. They proceeded to engage in a bloody conflict which took the lives of 4000 and wounded 10,000 others. The main factions led by the two warring generals, Ali Mahli Mohammid and Mohammid Farrah Aideed divided the bleeding city of Mogadishu into two military enclaves with virtually no civil administration.

 

It was under these conditions that the famine developed. In this respect, it is not far from the truth to say that the famine the U.S. intervened to stop, was itself created by the United States, since it was a direct result of the fight against the U.S. backed dictator Siad Barre.

 

Now at this point in the talk I want to take a few minutes to talk about famines in general, and what causes them.

 

What produces famines?

 

During the time of the Somalian famine in the January I5, 1993 issue of the NYT, News of the Week in Review, Sylvia Nasar reported the following:

 

"According to economists who study famine in Africa, Asia and Europe, the kind of famine which struck in Somalia, a famine created by clan warfare, not by crop shortages, or endemic poverty, is the rule, not the exception."

 

Nasar refers to Harvard economist, Amartya Sen, author of Poverty and Famine as follows: "World food production has kept well ahead of population growth. Drought or flood do often precede famines, but declines in food production rarely account for them.

 

Sen's book changed the way many scholars analyze hunger, according to the Times. Typically, as thousands die, there's enough food in the country to go around, or enough money to import it.

 

"Disaster strikes because the poorest, most downtrodden members of society suddenly can no longer afford to buy food, usually because of sudden unemployment or a surge in food prices.

 

"Death Amidst Plenty" is the sub-heading leading to Nasar's next paragraph:

 

"In Eastern and sub-Saharan Africa for example, there has been on average, twice as much food available per person as in other flood or drought-prone countries that managed to avoid mass deaths.

 

"One of the worst recent famines--Bangledesh's in I974, took place in a year of universally high rice production."

 

As Martin Ravillion, a World Bank economist who specializes in poverty in Asia, described it: "Severe flooding disrupted rice planting and threw landless rural laborers out of work. Then, false fears of shortages doubled rice prices in a few weeks. For the poor who spend more than three-quarters of their wages on food, the blow was catastrophic.

 

"But the famine, which was largely over even before the rice crop was harvested, was hardly inevitable.

 

"'Almost everything the government did made things worse,' said Mr.. Ravallion. Bangledesh's authoritarian rulers sent the army out to 'bash hoarders' convincing people that it had lost control and fueling the price surge."

 

And finally: "The United States contributed by announcing that it would withhold food aid to punish Bangledesh for, of all things, selling jute to Cuba."

 

U.S.-created famine

 

Already, having looked at what causes famine, lets look more closely at what happened in Somalia, and what role the U.S. may have had in creating it in the first place.

 

The giant food conglomerates in the U.S. and in other imperialist nations engage in dumping huge amounts of grain around the world even when there is no famine. This has the same effect as the cheap food which has been dumped on the market in Somalia. With so much food suddenly available, the price of a 110-pound bag of rice, for example, has quickly dropped to $7.00. What this means is that the Somalian peasants who have begun to grow crops again cannot compete with the low price of the agribusiness dumpings. This in turn tends to drive more peasants off the land in addition to making it harder for those who had left during the famine and civil war to find work. Finally, when market supplies eventually decline, leading to higher prices, the poor will again be without means to buy food. In countries like Somalia, more than two-thirds of peasant income often goes for food alone.

 

In the United States, as with other imperialist countries, the grain dumped on Somalian and other Third World markets, sells at prices below the cost of local production. This is not only due to the advantage of advanced agricultural techniques, but to the policy of extending government-financed export subsidies to the corporate grain monopolies. Thus, the need for advanced capitalist nations to find new markets for its "surplus" grains effectively leads to the destruction of not only the manufacturing, but the agricultural economies of poor nations.

 

Production of cereals more than doubled in the last 30 years, disproving Malthusian theories that world food supply cannot keep up with population growth. Countries like Brazil, China and India have registered giant increases in grain production. These increases though have been very uneven and have not taken place in a manner that has resulted in any kind of even or just distribution of food.

 

Now, at this point, having heard all this stuff about Somalia's history, about famine and about agribusiness, you might be saying to yourself, okay, so the U.S. screwed up and was to a large extent responsible for the Somalian civil war and the famine. And maybe even U.S. agribusinesses did indeed take advantage of the situation to increase its market share and get a bit of an advantage over its competitors. That's wrong, and should be opposed. But maybe that's why our government sent in the Marines, to try and fix up what we did wrong? Wasn't it a good thing that they tried to stop the famine, regardless of how it started? Why else would they go to all that expense and trouble to send in the Marines?

 

Well, there are some basic facts that cast doubt on the argument that the intervention was some kind of attempt to fix what we caused. One thing thing that raises eyebrows is that during the intervention the press reported how U.S. soldiers were compelled to, or better, had been directed to, operate in collaboration with the same clan leaders who were causing the famine. This includes paying a healthy percentage of 25 percent or more to the clans for their cooperation in food distribution. The Non-Governmental Organizations, or relief agencies, in effect did the same thing. The Red Cross reports that 20-30 percent of its relief aid was stolen, a factor which it had to regularly factor into its business calculations.

 

Perhaps this was necessary to get the job done, but when we add to this the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on the military operation, it is clear that providing food with troops was incredibly inefficient. If indeed the problem in the country was food scarcity, the problem could have been solved by flooding the country with food, not imperialist troops. Working as closely with agribussiness and other corporations as Washington is apt to do, one would think they knew a bit about how to distribute food a bit more efficiently.

 

Add to this the fact that the food arrived only after the worst effects of the famine were over. Reporters on the scene wrote of seeing U.S. soldiers arriving in some areas to find vast land areas with crops in abundance and no famine in sight.

 

These are embarrassing facts to point out to those who insist that the U.S. intervention was benevolent in nature. Embarrassing because it was not designed after all to stop a famine, or to clean up a mess agribussiness or our previous foriegn policies had created. The U.S. ruling class had other motives in mind. In fact, it had oil on its mind.

 

During the U.S. intervention in Somalia, a very embarrassing expose waspublished in the Los Angeles Times about the relationship of oil to the Somalia events. CBS News and the San Francisco Chronicle also confirmed that prior to the outbreak of the civil war, when Somalia was ruled by the U.S.-backed Siad Barre dictatorship, four major U.S. oil corporations were granted and purchased oil leases to explore Somalia's newly-discovered oil resources. Nearly two-thirds of Somalia's land surface was granted to Conoco, Amoco, Chevron and Philips Petroleum.

 

According to the SF Chronicle: "Industry sources said that the companies holding the rights to the most promising concessions are hoping that the Bush Administration's decision to send U.S. troops to safeguard aid shipments to Somalia will also help protect their multi-million investments there.

 

"Officially, the administration and the State Department insist that the U.S. military mission in Somalia is strictly humanitarian. Oil industry spokesmen dismissed as "absurd" and "nonsense" allegations by aid experts, veteran East Africa analysts and several prominent Somalis that President Bush, a former Texas oilman, was moved to act in Somalia, at least in part by the U.S. corporate oil stake.

 

"But corporate and scientific documents disclose that the American oil companies are well-positioned to pursue Somalia's most promising oil reserves the moment the nation is pacified." [i marvel at the ease with which this reporter uses the word "pacified.'] "And State Department and U.S. military officials acknowledge that one of those oil companies has done more than sit back and hope for peace.

 

"Conoco even permitted its Mogadishu corporate compound to be transformed into a de facto American embassy a few days before the U.S. Marines landed in the capital."

 

Now those are some very interesting revelations, revelations that become even more revealing when you put them into perspective by looking at the history oil has played in U.S. foreign policy.

 

Oil and imperialism

 

In the 1970s, the world's oil industry was highly centralized, with 70 percent of production and 50 percent of refinery capacity in the hands of seven corporations. Today the number has been reduced to six. Five of these were U.S.-owned; the other two were jointly held by the British government and private capital (British Petroleum) and by British and Dutch Corporations (Royal Dutch Shell).

 

Ranked in terms of assets, Standard Oil of New Jersey in 1971 was the largest U.S. corporation; Texaco, third; Gulf, fifth; Mobil, seventh; and Standard Oil of California , tenth. These multinational corporations owned most of the oil in the Middle East. The result was the unimpeded extraction of billions of dollars in profits from oppressed nations in favor of U.S. capital.

 

Two of the most powerful ruling class families in the world, the Rockefellers and the Mellons, stand at the top of the world's oil pyramid. By 1971 the Rockefellers, in addition to their controlling interest in such corporations as the Chase Manhatten Bank and the lesser oil concerns, controlled three of the five major U.S. oil concerns. The Mellons owned the controlling interest in Gulf Oil.

 

The influence of the oil families in U.S. politics and foreign policy is directly related to their financial power. Former Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, for example, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, was the chief architect of U.S. military, economic and political policy in the Middle East. He and his brother Allen were partners in the Wall Street law firm of Sullivan and Cromwell, the major attorneys for Standard Oil of New Jersey. Allen Dulles was the director of the CIA.

 

The politics of oil has not changed much since the Dulles brothers. They too were adept at pretexts for U.S. military interventions, most often promoting the myth of an expansionist communism led by the Stalinist bureaucracy in the former USSR. Absent the "communist threat" lesser lights have come to the fore to play the role of world "bogeyman."

 

Look for example at how we used the Iranian revolution of 1979 and the subsequent coming to power by the Ayotollah Khomeni to interefere in Middle East politics, playing a key role in maintaining the devastating eight year war between Iraq and Iran - which divided the Middle East, and provided numerous pretexts for U.S. troops to intervene.

 

Look at how the U.S. used Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1991. Kuwait, it should be pointed out was an artificially created monarchy, that historically was part of Iraq. It was created by the British to make it easier to control the oil there. When Kuwait began illegally slant drilling oil under the Iraqi border it was invaded. The U.S. told Saddam before hand it didn't care. When it happened though Washington rushed in the troops. Why? Just look at the Middle East today as a result. U.S. troops are still stationed there protecting the Saudi oil fields. The potentially radical Arab states are divided against each other, and scared shitless haven seen the power of the U.S. military might when it was unleased upon Iraq, killing hundreds of thousands.

 

Look at how the U.S. has supported Isreal, further dividing the Middle East, dividing the Arabs against themselves by trying to get so called moderate Arab states to recongize the extermination of the Palestinian nation, while ostracizing the Arab states which condemn Isreal and Zionism.

 

It's all about pretexts my friends. Oil is crucial to the running of today's capitalist economy. This makes the Middle East of crucial importance to the U.S. It makes the Horn of Africa strategic, both because of its proximity to the oil, its possible oil reserves, and its location along the oil tanker routes through both the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea.

 

These are the real reasons the U.S. intervened in Somalia. They wanted to protect the investments and hoped for profits of American oil companies. And also, because these are times marked by ever increasing inter-imperialist economic rivalry, Washington needs to be free to pursue the dollar with the bomb, without restriction, in order to back up our corporations, and our interests. McDonalds needs McDonnell Douglas to stay on top of the money making game, and nothing helps keep competitors in check than some good old fashioned muscle flexing and bomb dropping. That's why the U.S. continues to do what it is doing to Iraq, that's why we went to war with Afghanistan, that's why we're intervening today in Columbia and the Philippines, and that's why we intervened in Somalia in the early 1990s.

 

Now what does all this mean, and what can we do about it. Truly we live a world of incredible contradictions: Having achieved the highest levels of technology in the history of humanity the reality is that 2 billion of the earth's 5.5 billion inhabitants still face hunger and malnutrition. Oppression and exploitation is on the rise, in the Middle East, in East Africa, in Columbia all the way to right here in the upper-Midwest.

 

Fidel Castro, speaking at the United Nations during the time of the Somalian invasion highlighted the situation by saying the following:

 

"And in the United Nations, all 15 members of the Security Council without exception, voted for the intervention in Somalia, since it was a solid pretext---the pictures of emaciated people, of people starving to death.

 

And so the aircraft carriers arrived, arrived along with the battleships, helicopters, tanks, all kinds of things, and the boots, which in some pictures could be seen on the backs of Somali citizens.

 

"In other words, they went in to take food through gunfire, to take food there through gunfire. And, in another part of the world, they have a blockade against a country like Cuba, trying to make Cuba die of starvation and disease. That's the logic, those are the morals of the American empire."

 

Our job is to fight against that American empire, from within the belly of the beast. We need to challenge the lies put out by Hollywood, the mainstream press and Washington, we need to oppose their war moves, and all of their foreign interventions. We need to fight for a world where people, not profits come first. In conclusion, I believe what we need to do is fight for a world without borders, without the corrupting forces of the marker, and where no person is allowed to exploit another. That kind of world is called socialism, and I invite you to join us in fighting for it. Thank you.

 

 

Source:

[Mr. Somalia]

Will the US ever get it right in Somalia?

 

The American raid in Somalia last Monday is likely to join a long list of US foreign policy failures. Many of these efforts were guided by self-interest coupled with lack of appreciation for the historical and cultural contexts. Somalis are proud nomads who value their freedom and independence. They are also suspicious of strangers due to their experiences during the scramble for Africa, which left a bitter taste. Somalis in what was once called Somaliland moved freely back and forth for centuries without any restrictions. The imperial powers then decided that it was too big a land for grazing nomads. As a result, Italy, France and Britain divided the land among themselves.

 

The final blow came when Britain decided to give a piece of the land – namely the ****** region and the Northern Frontier District – to Kenya and Ethiopia, separating families and igniting a desire to reunite with them in the ensuing pan-Somalia movement. Today, Somalis are distrustful of any projects that involve foreigners. Their fears have been classically reinforced by US foreign policies that constantly switched sides in Somalia's conflicts.

 

Since the inception of Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in 2004, the journey has been a rollercoaster. Initially, the US overlooked the TFG because a long-term engagement policy was not an option. Instead the US employed a group of warlords who promised miracles as partners in the war on terror. Millions of dollars were redirected to this endeavour. The plan backfired and provoked an Islamist takeover of the south central regions. The US was left to firefight and supported the consequent Ethiopian invasion.

 

Unsurprisingly, a fierce uprising against Ethiopia followed, leading to an embarrassing withdrawal from Somali soil. The US continues to support the TFG, which is inherently weak and unable to withstand attacks by the well-organised insurgency. Yet the US came up with a massive plan, injecting millions of dollars into TFG, and boosting arms supplies to its militias. Some of these weapons mysteriously found their way to the insurgency.

 

This is not the first time the US has misread the fortunes of Somalia. In 1990, a few months before Siad Barre's dictatorial regime ccollapsed, General Norman Schwarzkopf told Congress that military aid was critical to help preserve Somalia's political and territorial integrity.

 

Barre was a notorious dictator: summary executions and detentions without trial were commonplace. The man nicknamed "Mighty Mouth" made even yawning in public a punishable crime. During the cold war, his style of government was treated as a minor inconvenience. Keeping the gateway to Africa and the Middle Eastern oil supplies communism-free were seen more important – a position that Barre used very well. For 20 years he wavered mischievously between left and right, blackmailing his way to building the biggest arsenal in Africa. The US gave him $800m in aid, while Italy poured in $1bn, half of which went on arms.

 

In 1991, Barre's rule ended and the country fell to armed opposition groups. What began as a noble resurrection against tyranny soon to took an ugly twist. The southern clans' alliance, led by the infamous General Aidid, chased Barre out of Mogadishu and began cleansing the capital of his clan. The alliance then turned on the peaceful communities of the capital, killing and uprooting millions of people. The southern alliance soon turned on itself, reducing the country to chaos for the next two decades.

 

In 1993, almost two years into to this mayhem, a UN relief operation led by the US was initiated to save the starving children caught in the middle. The mission also sought to disarm the fighters and hand the country back to the people. Instead, the US has literally put it at the mercy of warlords. Unaware of the mental state of General Aided, the US took sides. In no time Aidid switched from collaborator to a fugitive, leading to the consequent Blackhawk confrontations which killed 18 US rangers and thousands of nameless Somalis.

 

Young, angry, and with few or no employable skills, Somali men from around the globe march back, apparently to rid the country of infidel collaborators and the evil of capitalism. Add this to rising piracy off the Gulf of Aden and Somalia can no longer be ignored. While one appreciates that US interest must come first, there is no foreseeable win situation through cat-and-mouse politics.

 

Yes, last Monday's attack brought a terrorist down, but the conditions that bred him persist. Since then, we have seen the first fruits of that ill-advised mission in the form of the deadliest suicide attack so far, which killed 11 people, including the deputy commander of the African Union force trying to protect Somalia's weak government. These are signs that things are about to get worse. Yet nothing has changed in US policy, which seems oblivious to the fact that too much blood has already been shed.

 

Contrary to the popular belief, extremism in Somalia has not come out of an empty terrain; it grew over time and in a context. Plans to reverse it will need serious thought.

 

This must be accompanied by change of attitudes towards Africa. Already the UK is leading the way by amending the law in order to deal with Somali individuals wanted for crimes against humanity since 1990. It is not enough, but it is a start, and I hope other countries will follow the UK's example.

 

Source:

[NASSIR]

Mr. Somalia thanks for the long article.

I think Somalia is still facing the containment policy, that is to "pursue a much narrower and targeted counter-terrorism approach.. It's a choice now promoted by the Vice President and many senate and House members to be applied in Afghanistan as opposed to stabilizing it and pursuing a nation-building approach.

 

But the question that bothers me always is that if the said powers to be have no interest in committing enough resources to the stabilization and nation building of Somalia, why can't they leave us in peace? Why use different proxies and impose weak governments from the top? This choice of skepticism in the power of Somalis to deal with their own problems while at the same time creating more instablity through the use of proxies and the narrower counter-terrorism approach is hard to believe.

[UZTAAD]

this author is suggesting that UN& AU should invade Somalia and put under UN mandate in order to prepare genuine elections in Somalia and train this people how to rule themselves.

 

By WILLIAM OCHIENG'

Sunday, October 11 2009

Forget about the United States of America; their interest in Somalia is not to arrest the plight of the suffering Somali people. Foremost, their goal is to defeat and crush the imagined al Qaeda element in the on-going civil war in that sad country.

 

There is no way one can be pro-Al Shabaab or pro-Hizbul Islaam. Their visions are lopsided, and their methods of struggle vicious, horrific and anti-religion. My advocation has been for a policy that recognises the pathetic plight of the suffering and dying Somalis, against the gradualist and ineffectual military policy embraced by the African Union and the US.

 

Across Somalia today there is shortage of food, drugs and shelter. The UN officials say Somalia has not been in such perilous shape since the central government collapsed in 1991, and is in desperate need of help. And now Barack Obama’s team says: “We are compelled to hold any relief following concerns that the aid might be diverted to the camp of the pro-al Qaeda terrorists.”

 

 

 

On his part Muammar Gaddafi, the AU leader, who should be attending to such problems, is busy with his antics. Is it not possible for a combination of UN and AU troops to invade Somalia and turn that country into a UN “trust territory,” as proper preparations are made to enable the Somali population to elect a legitimate government?

When Idi Amin Dada, Uganda’s treacherous dictator, was on our backs in East Africa, President Julius Nyerere called his top military officers and ordered them: “I want Idi Amin’s head.” Within two weeks the Tanzanian troops were in the field towards Kampala, capturing, slaying and destroying any evidence of Amin.

 

A little while later Idi Amin was in the air to Libya, while his Ugandan troops were scattered pell-mell, in headlong flight, to the borders.

 

SINCE THEN WE HAVE HAD SOME peace in East Africa. That is how the globalising world under the UN, should handle the Al Shabaab. This is a terrorist group that administers sharia laws not in the Koran — the book of the Islamic faith that contains the word of Allah.

 

The Al Shabaab believes that they are a holy movement, sanctioned by God to deliver their country from the infidels. But in truth, it is a murderous international terrorist band that does not listen to anyone. Their international supporters simply supply arms and do not dish out food, drugs, clothing or bedding for the suffering. If you raise your voice against them, they cut your arms, or legs or ears. Would God really approve of such law?

 

The overall result is that neighbouring Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Puntland are faced with massive refugees, fleeing from their wrath. To survive, some Somalis have taken to banditry and piracy — as their ancestors did at the Red Sea in the ancient days of Aksum. International navies have been deployed to protect ships in the Gulf of Aden, one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, but apparently the navies have failed to contain piracy.

 

It is just as well. The world’s mission is to get on with its commerce, while the people of Somalia live in squalor in the hands of hard-line Islamic groups. After 18 years of anarchy, over three million Somalis need food and liberation.

 

What is to be done? It looks like only the UN, with its universal mandate, can save the Somalis from their predicament. Had Somalia been a European country, its problems would have been sorted out long time ago by the international community. But being in Africa very few rich and powerful world countries bother; and that is why many in Africa are sceptical about globalisation.

[UZTAAD]

well said Oodweyne, Somalis where ever they are have so far failed to learn from their past mistakes and make amends.

they have drunk the poisonous wine of tribalism, fanaticism, secession, anarchism and all sorts of self destructive behaviors . I think it will take long time before they wake up and learn where their interest and priority lies . the world does not care Somalia any more as you said because in politics there is only intests not friends .

[NASSIR]

Hence, it's best to have no illusion about other country's political agenda; and

you should always proceed to settle your own problem as best you can without the need of others, whilst, at the same time, baring in mind, that no nation on this earth, is ever likely to do you a favour

that is outside of it's self-interests in turn.

Oodweyne thanks for the long reply. I really concur with your deep reflections. The onerous task of bringing together a divided Society is upon us and when that happens (even if it coincides with a major shift of power from the west to the east) Somalia shall outlast its enemies and prosper.

[Mr. Somalia]

The failure of the international community and the resilience of Somalis

 

Somalia is officially classified as a failed state where warlords, Islamic extremists, suicide bombings, piracy, secessionists, poverty and anarchy prevail and are the norms of every day life. Believe it or not the Somali question remains one of the most difficult, unabated and unresolved conflicts in modern times while other major post-cold war conflicts in Europe and Africa have been resolved. In case you have forgotten, the unbearable roar of guns and bombs explosions in former-Yugoslavia that we used to see and hear through our TV screens, seem to have been silenced by, among other things, a massive military intervention supported by a long term political commitment and diplomacy as is the case in the Balkan, or through a peace keeping mission initiated by an individual country like the UK experiment in Sierra Leon where British forces have helped end a long civil war.

 

Even other hotspots, Iraq and Afghanistan, which one can be called the 9/11 conflicts, the international community (Western powers), although they might have to stay there for a long time before realising their objectives, have installed functioning governments in those countries and have enabled them to hold “democratic” elections although imperfect and flawed.

 

With regard to the Somali conflict, the international community seems ambivalent and divided as ever between those who have given up on Somalia, blaming Somalis for the failure! And those who are willing to help but end up taking the wrong decision, thus worsening the situation, as was the case when Ethiopia was allowed to invade and occupy Somalia.

 

However, to be fair on history, the international community did try to help end the conflict when in 1992 the United Nations Security Council authorised the deployment of peace keeping forces (the UNISOM). Though huge resources were allocated, the mission failed for the lack of a long political commitment and plan. The death of few American soldiers was enough to force the American administration to withdraw its forces. Compare that failure of policy with another post-cold conflict namely former Yugoslavia (Balkan conflict) and you will see how these conflicts were treated differently which led to different outcomes! One was given a long term political commitment with massive military intervention while the other was left to crumble on its feet.

 

Put it bluntly, the international community has failed Somalia.

 

However, despite the negligence and indifference by the international community, lack of normal and formal state structure, and despite the human suffering and economic cost of the conflict, Somalis have proven to be resilient, entrepreneurial, creative, hardworking and ingenious, and have accomplished some remarkable and great things against the odds. In fact Somalis have done well in some development sectors and are well ahead of those “stable” neighbouring states, including Kenya and Ethiopia.

 

Let us tell this untold story.

 

Powerful autonomous regional administrations

 

Despite the threat of dismemberment, and an uncertain future, Somalis have succeeded in creating some administrations e.g. Puntland, Somaliland, TFG etc. And some of them have good functioning public institutions, which provide diverse and varied levels of peace and security and some kind of basic social services. What Somalis have got now is strong and assertive regional administrations, under which they are exercising some kind of self-rule. Somalis are now more or less autonomous and independent from a centralised government or structure, which has arguably caused the failure of the state, and which Somalis have fought against it. It is really sad that it took 30-40 years and a lot of suffering before cities such as Baydhabo, Garawe and Hargeysa could try to taste regional autonomy and asserts their freedom from Mogadishu. Also one wonders whether some of these entities with a secession tendency are not really seeking total independence but merely are craving for, and expressing the desire for legitimate greater freedoms and autonomy, which have been denied by previous governments, particularly during the dictatorship in which the famous Villa Somalia was the power-house.

 

Somalis have now an emerging weaker federal structure embodied in the TFG, which could be utilised as a blue print for a looser federal structure. So what Somalis need right now is a negotiated federal structure that will hopefully lead to the rebirth of a stronger Somali state.

 

Good primary education enrolment

 

At the independence, Somalis had a Grade 1 primary enrolment of only 6,000 in 233 primary schools. During the 1960s the education system stagnated and this caused a decrease in primary education enrolment. This situation got better in early 1970s because of the successful literacy campaign, compulsory primary enrolment, and the adoption of the script of the Somali language. However, the education system deteriorated in 1977-78 due to, among other things, the ****** war. And a year before the collapse the central government the primary and secondary school enrolment dropped to 60,000 from 300,000 in the early years of 1980s.

 

 

Although Somalis have lost two generations who are without or with little education due to state failures in 1980s and the civil strife in 1990s, and this loss of human capital will negatively impact on future human development in the country, despite the fact that Somalis lag behind most countries in terms of primary education enrolment, they have however succeeded in creating and restoring old and new educational institutions and facilities, which now provide essential education services. For example, the primary education enrolment though diverge and fluctuates between administration, has improved, and in 2003-04 enrolment shoot up to 300,000, a figure that is much higher than what it was few years prior the civil war. In addition, there are some secondary, vocational institutes, and adult education colleges, where students learn different subjects. Before the civil war, higher education was more or less bankrupt (1980s), and its institutions, for instance the Somali National University, were bankrolled by donor countries. However, during the civil strive with their hard work and resilience Somalis have successfully created new institutions from scratch. For example, it is worth mentioning the success story of creating the Amoud University in which Borama residents, faced with 8,000 primary and secondary students, transformed the residential Amoud Higher School to a university. So if yesterday Somalis were proud of the Somali National University – the only and dominant institution - to serve the country today there are up to 10 universities in the country, including among others Hargeysa University, Mogadishu University, Puntland State University, and three of them are in Africa’s top 100 universities.

 

 

Although the ownership, management and financing of educational institutions vary from public-community-NGO to private sector, despite the fact that some of these institutions are rudimentary and operate through varied and different curriculum and standards, although accessibility is limited due to issues around affordability, it must be recognised that these institutions provide much needed education services to Somalis. And therefore Somalis should be commended for their hard work and tireless efforts.

 

A vibrant private sector

 

Telecommunication: Access to telecommunication before the civil strife was very expensive and not accessible to most Somalis. Telephone lines were limited to cities and to those lucky ones who could offer it. For example, in 1990 there were about 2 fixed telephone mainlines per 1,000 people. However, thanks to the entrepreneurial spirit of Somalis and to new technologies today there are about 9 private operators that provide competitive telecommunication services to almost every province and to even towns and village, which did not have access to telephone prior the war. Today, there are around 25 mainlines per 1,000 persons, and availability of telephone lines (tele-density) in Somalia is higher than in neighbouring countries, three time higher than in Ethiopia. Access to international telephone calls is probably the most affordable and cheapest in whole of Africa. For example, in 2005 one minute phone-call from Mogadishu or Hargeysa cost $0.50-0.80, as the rate of one minute international phone call from a small town or a village in Somalia was cheaper than of that in Addis Ababa! In 2003, there were 63 mobile phones per 1,000 people and there are internet facilities.

 

Although in need of regulatory and structural framework, the sector provides much needed services, which improve the lives of thousands in terms of, among other things, job creation and income generation etc.

 

Small scale industries: Just few years before the civil war, the 53 or so state-owned large-medium and small manufacturing enterprises, like many public institutions, were breaking down and bankrupt. Then the civil war destroyed the rest, almost all infrastructure were looted. However thanks to investment by the Diaspora, the remittance sector, and some intervention by the international community Somalis have managed to re-start some old small scale plants, as they have created new ones. These include fish canning and meat processing plants in the north, some 25 factories in Mogadishu, which produce pasta, mineral water, sweets, plastic bags and sheets, hides and skins, detergent and soap, aluminium, foam mattresses and pillows, fishing boats, packaging, and stone processing etc.

 

The airline industry: Again thanks to their entrepreneurial spirit and lack of strict regulatory frameworks, there are up to 14 private companies (e.g. Daallo) which run commercial flights from Somalia to abroad. These companies offer competitive flight tickets. These carriers have been a life-line to Somalis’ booming trade, as they have been a helping hand in the delivery of crucial humanitarian assistance by the international community. So if yesterday Somalis were proud of the now bankrupt and defunct Somali Airline – the only national carrier that dominated the sky – today Somalis have successfully created private airlines companies that connect Somalis to the outside world.

 

Road Infrastructure: in late 1970s there were 19,380 kilometres of road infrastructure which include all categories from paved, gravel, to tarmac. Despite the fact that these roads have been badly deteriorating in some parts of the country and in need of maintenance, the percentage of roads that have been paved and maintained by Somalis during the civil war period is the same as of that of Kenya and Ethiopia, and much higher than in Tanzania.

 

Remittance fuels booming trade: Some 750,000 Somalis in the Diaspora sent US$825 million to $1billion in 2004 to Somalia. This is estimated to be around 60 percent of Gross National Product (GNP). This generosity offers much needed subsistence to relatives, and acts as a life-line not only for immediate families, but also to wider society as the money trickles down via domestic commerce to even remote rural communities. The money transfer helps much needed construction projects, small business, credit and loans schemes, as it assists in creating some job opportunities and incomes.

 

Also, the money transfer- handled by a network of roughly 8 remittance companies, facilitates international trade. Even though these companies face future challenges in terms of adopting structural and regulatory frameworks to get them integrated into the global financial system, and despite the current setbacks caused by the closure of some companies due to alleged terrorism financing, the sector has proven to be resilient, and it continues to help a booming trade in which exports (livestock etc) and imports reached a record high US$265 million and US$400 million respectively. The remittance sector also makes regional and international payment transactions from and to Somalia more efficient and smoother than pre-war system. $100 sent from Europe/USA takes 1-2 days to reach relatives in Somalia if compared to the pre-war era where because of, among other things, bureaucracy it was a cumbersome task to transfer money via banks. It would not be an exaggeration if I say that the Somali remittance network is more efficient and reliable than those “formal” banking systems in Kenya and Ethiopia where bureaucracy and cumbersome regulatory frameworks make business and banking transaction much harder.

 

Somalis have even tried to create banks, for example the attempt by a Somali group to open the Universal Bank of Somalia, the Dahabshiil efforts to become a bank is worth noting.

 

Furthermore, the vibrant and resilient private sector – sometimes in partnership with public/NGO sectors, continues to provide essential services e.g. water, electricity, education and health, which are sometime better and more efficient than the pre-war service provision. And towns and villages, which even did not have access to some of these services under the central government are benefiting from it.

 

And thanks to their resilience and hard-work Somalis’ Gross National Income per capita is higher than Kenyans and Ethiopians!!

 

Conclusion

 

No room for complacency

 

However, having highlighted some impressive achievements, I must say there is no room for complacency. This is because Somalis are amongst the poorest in the world and they owe the international community a massive debt of US$3.2 billion. Somalis lag behind in all human poverty indexes; and about 71% of population do not have access to sustainable water sources. In addition, they are far behind in meeting the UN’s millennium targets that, among other things, stipulate universal primary education to all children by 2015.

 

Even those stable regional administrations are now facing same old problems that existed during the central government, ranging from mismanagement of public funds; corruption; ineffective revenue collection mechanism; an imbalanced public budget in which higher percentage of the public purse is allocated to security and presidency sectors, while less is spent on social services and developmental projects. For example Puntland and Somaliland spend only 1% to 5% of their annual budget on education, which is the same as the pre-war expenditure. And obviously this would mean less education for children.

 

Recommendations: what the international community should do:

 

Pragmatic and practical support to all existing and emerging governance structure be it local, regional or federal.

 

Refrain from inflaming the situation by whipping up the politics of war on terror in the region. Please try to learn a lesson from what had happened in Somali when Islamic Court Union was forced out and Ethiopia occupied Somalia. As extremism and terrorism forces in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan seem to have been defeated ideologically and military, it is very likely that those forces in Somalia will be defeated by Somalis’ dislike of extremism and fanaticism combined with Obama administration’s policy of dialogue with the Islamic world. These forces will make noises now and then (suicide bombings etc) but it is a matter of time before they disappear. So patience is required.

 

Do not see and use one issue e.g. piracy as a tool to resolve the Somali conflict. This is a short term strategy and policy that proved to be a failure.

 

In order to safeguard the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the country, the international community should try to coerce through diplomacy and political will all stake-holders (regional states and federal government) to work together in view of constituting a federal structure. A case in point is the recent efforts by the Congressman Donald Payne, Chairman of subcommittee on Africa and Global Health of trying to bring stakeholders under one roof for dialogue and reconciliation. This was a historic landmark in America’s policy. This is the kind of soft power which the US and other countries need to use in order to bang and bash heads together because this method is much cheaper but more powerful and effective than any other methods. So please keep on inviting these institutions to your Congresses and parliaments in the hope that one day wise men with listening ears might listen to your wisdom and learn from your country’s experience as united states under a federal system.

 

For Somalis, please continue with your resilience, perseverance, ingenuity and hardworking in order to achieve even greater results in the future. Help yourself so that the world can help you.

 

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